Win32: How to get the process/thread that owns a mutex?

Question

I'm working an application of which only one instance must exist at any given time. There are several possibilities to accomplish this:

• Check running processes for one matching our EXE's name (unreliable)
• Find the main window (unreliable, and I don't always have a main window)
• Create a mutex with a unique name (GUID)

The mutex option seems to me the most reliable and elegant.

However, before my second instance terminates, I want to post a message to the already running instance. For this, I need a handle to the thread (or the process) that owns the mutex.

However, there seems to be no API function to get the creator/owner of a given mutex. Am I just overlooking it? Is there another way to get to this thread/process? Is there another way to go about this?

Update: This guy simply broadcast a message to all running processes. I guess that's possible, but I don't really like it...

Answer 1

This should get you started on the original request to get a process that owns a mutex.

It's in C#, but the Win32 calls are the same.

class HandleInfo
{
    [DllImport("ntdll.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
    public static extern uint NtQuerySystemInformation(int SystemInformationClass, IntPtr SystemInformation, int SystemInformationLength, out int ReturnLength);

    [DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    internal static extern IntPtr VirtualAlloc(IntPtr address, uint numBytes, uint commitOrReserve, uint pageProtectionMode);

    [DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError=true)]
    internal static extern bool VirtualFree(IntPtr address, uint numBytes, uint pageFreeMode);

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
    public struct SYSTEM_HANDLE_INFORMATION
    {
        public int ProcessId;
        public byte ObjectTypeNumber;
        public byte Flags; // 1 = PROTECT_FROM_CLOSE, 2 = INHERIT
        public short Handle;
        public int Object;
        public int GrantedAccess;
    }

    static uint MEM_COMMIT = 0x1000;
    static uint PAGE_READWRITE = 0x04;
    static uint MEM_DECOMMIT = 0x4000;
    static int SystemHandleInformation = 16;
    static uint STATUS_INFO_LENGTH_MISMATCH = 0xC0000004;

    public HandleInfo()
    {
        IntPtr memptr = VirtualAlloc(IntPtr.Zero, 100, MEM_COMMIT, PAGE_READWRITE);

        int returnLength = 0;
        bool success = false;

        uint result = NtQuerySystemInformation(SystemHandleInformation, memptr, 100, out returnLength);
        if (result == STATUS_INFO_LENGTH_MISMATCH)
        {
            success = VirtualFree(memptr, 0, MEM_DECOMMIT);
            memptr = VirtualAlloc(IntPtr.Zero, (uint)(returnLength + 256), MEM_COMMIT, PAGE_READWRITE);
            result = NtQuerySystemInformation(SystemHandleInformation, memptr, returnLength, out returnLength);
        }

        int handleCount = Marshal.ReadInt32(memptr);
        SYSTEM_HANDLE_INFORMATION[]  returnHandles = new SYSTEM_HANDLE_INFORMATION[handleCount];

        using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(@"C:\NtQueryDbg.txt"))
        {
            sw.WriteLine("@ Offset\tProcess Id\tHandle Id\tHandleType");
            for (int i = 0; i < handleCount; i++)
            {
                SYSTEM_HANDLE_INFORMATION thisHandle = (SYSTEM_HANDLE_INFORMATION)Marshal.PtrToStructure(
                    new IntPtr(memptr.ToInt32() + 4 + i * Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(SYSTEM_HANDLE_INFORMATION))),
                    typeof(SYSTEM_HANDLE_INFORMATION));
                sw.WriteLine("{0}\t{1}\t{2}\t{3}", i.ToString(), thisHandle.ProcessId.ToString(), thisHandle.Handle.ToString(), thisHandle.ObjectTypeNumber.ToString());
            }
        }

        success = VirtualFree(memptr, 0, MEM_DECOMMIT);
    }
}